Beyond Android development

This post is a reflection about my first 10 years in the craft and how I would like the next years to be like.

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In my 10-year software engineering career, I’ve explored various technologies but devoted most of my time to Android development.

Looking back, my focused approach paid off. As you master technical details, you can shift attention to solve the underlying problem. This enables managing increasing complexity and allowed me to become a leader who creates long-term solutions that empower dozens of engineers and affect millions of users.

But as problems grow in scale, Android apps become a small part — or no part — of the solution¹. The complete solution is usually a complex system with interconnected components.

The Mythical Man-Month: Chapter 1 - The Joys of the Craft summarizes the reasons I enjoy being a software engineer in a much better fashion than I could ². Those reasons didn’t stop exciting me after a decade because every day I’m still challenged by engaging problems.

Yet, I no longer believe investing deeply in Android development is my optimal path forward. I (still) remain an Android engineer, but to drive more systemic impact, I will work to expand my knowledge boundaries beyond mobile.

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1. Most software engineering problems don’t need a mobile client and most of the ones that need one are better served by other techonologies. Native apps only make sense in increasingly specific use cases. ↩

2. I tried to, as you can see in this post git history. ↩